Devices > JRiver Id -- Hardware by JRiver
JRiver Synapse -- Would you consider a $395 Audiophile DLNA Renderer?
JimH:
Any video conversion occurs on the server. The DLNA Renderer just decodes the video stream.
astromo:
Given the apparent cost expectations, for an audio only offering, cheap and cheerful appears to be a common line. The cheap hardware option that comes to my mind is via ARM architecture CPU based computing. Something like this:
http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox
http://cubox-i.com/table/
From what I can make out these things can run with Android, which brings this discussion back to the surface:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=79567.0
or Linux. Here's a blog post from a guy who clean installed Debian Wheezy on a Cubox:
http://gwolf.org/content/cubox-i4pro
I'd think if you're not going to worry about displays, then keep going down the same path and don't carry the $ overhead that comes with an Intel hardware platform (even if a NUC is pretty cheap).
For people like me who really don't want to have to mess with learning a whole lot of command line language, I'd consider a deal in a 2 inch cube pre-loaded and ready to literally "rock and roll" out of the box to a bit-perfect audio standard assured by JRiver. You would really be adding value by providing a convenience factor for a fair proportion of the audio discerning user population who aren't IT wizzes.
cncb:
--- Quote from: JimH on March 05, 2014, 05:07:29 pm ---We haven't found a DLNA Renderer that works all the time on all file types.
They're also not audiophile quality.
--- End quote ---
You can just convert/transcode to WAV to solve the file type problem (and you also get volume leveling that way). And won't this just have HDMI and digital optical outputs which is what most of the cheap boxes (renderers) have too? What will this have that is more "audiophile quality"?
glynor:
--- Quote from: cncb on March 05, 2014, 07:48:43 pm ---What will this have that is more "audiophile quality"?
--- End quote ---
It would be MC, with MC's DSPs and Audio Output configuration, that could directly access MC's Library just like any other client. It would work as a DLNA client too, of course, since MC does, but in a household with other installations of MC, I imagine it would be even more capable.
That said...
I think, perhaps, Jim, you'd do better to take the exact same idea, and reframe it at a MC Server-in-a-Box.
If you can set it up so that all the user has to do is plug it into their network, plug in a big USB3 hard drive, and it Just Works to import and share your media out? Like a File Transporter, optimized for all of your media use.
And, of course, if it happened to be on your AV Rack near your amp? So much the better.
I get that there is a deficit in the DLNA market. There is, but I don't know that the play works for that cost. But I think solving the "your media, wherever you are" problem? Yeah, people will pay for that.
But, it has to be consumer-electronics-easy, or close enough.
cncb:
--- Quote from: glynor on March 05, 2014, 08:05:03 pm ---It would be MC, with MC's DSPs and Audio Output configuration, that could directly access MC's Library just like any other client. It would work as a DLNA client too, of course, since MC does, but in a household with other installations of MC, I imagine it would be even more capable.
--- End quote ---
I would consider that an "MC Library Client" rather than a "DLNA Renderer". Even then the DSPs would mainly be important with analog audio output (since your AVR would most likely process the digital output) and I think most "audiophiles" would consider the built-in analog outputs on motherboards pretty poor.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version